At Gunpoint

Chapter 8

Harry's POV

"Harry... Harry you're screaming."

I sat up with a start in complete darkness and something soft quickly withdrew away from my forehead.

"I'm over here." Kasey's familiar voice sounded to my left. I changed focus point and after a few seconds I could make out contoures of a tiny person.

"Bad dream?" The soft something came back and I noted it was a hand. Carefully Kasey was removing strand of hairs sticking to my face.

"I... I'm not sure."

My eyes were used to the dark by now. I could see Kasey tilting her head to the side in confusion, her long hair tucked behind her ear. She was sitting  on the bed with her legs crossed, almost like a pretzel. My t-shirt falling off her shoulders and covering half her thighs. No, it was not supposed to be oversize. She was just really...small.

"You don't remember?"

"It happens sometimes." I diverted the subject. "Why are you up?"

"You we're screaming." She repeated calmly. "Don't worry, it wasn't too bad. Two bucks you didn't wake anyone. Besides me of course, but that was a given."

She seemed to be in an awfully good mood for time being the middle of the night. I checked my phone. 4:11 am. I was not feeling as perky.

"Go to sleep Kase." I mumbled. "I'm not up for another night walk."

I closed my eyes, but could still feel her grin behind me.

"As you wish, my lord." She teased and scooted back down under the sheets. As for me even though weariness was weighing me down, no not weighing, pushing me down into the matress, I still couldn't find myself able to sleep.

-

I must have fallen asleep after all, because I woke up with hair tickling my nose. First thing I did was sneeze.

"Wha-" With no warning Kasey swung her arm at my face, clearly still not awake. Drowsy, the rest of her body followed and turned to me.

"Thanks." I nodded at her arm and rolled my eyes slightly.

"Sorry. Good morning."

"There are so such thing as 'good mornings' " I frowned and rubbed my eye.

She smiled and let me have my way by promising henceforth she'd skip the good. Though, she still insisted we had to get our butts out of bed. Something we clearly did not agree on. After a ton of excuses I could think of at the top of my head this early in the day, I found myself defeated and standing on my feet. She practically had to drag me by the arm out of the dorm.

Kasey's POV

By pedagogical methods (Read: truculent) I had managed the task to make me and Harry be on time for the first class of the day. While walking over campus square we were greeted by a large mass of students, all nervous wrecks crying onto their friends' shoulders.

"What's this?" Harry asked, like I would know. I didn't bother to reply. Instead I elbowed my way through the crowd towards the large tree everyone seemed to be so upset about. Which left me in a big cloud of question marks. What could be so upsetting about a plant? Was it somehow fleshing eating and people noticed just now, by it devouring a teacher or something?

When I had made my way to the front I saw what was so frightning. Hanging in a rope from on the the lowest sat branches, there was a kid. Dangling by his neck tied up in the rope. He had cuts and slashes over his arms and chest. A red, thick mark appeared around his throat, as if someone had been grabbing around it with a big hand. By his wrist there were four lines with a fifth crossing over them burnt into his skin, and head bowing down to the ground. I recoginzed him by his bright red hair. The kid was Max Peters.

Since I joined the program, I had always imagined what finding my first dead body would be like. In every scenario I had made up I was screaming, passing out or throwing up, or in special cases all of those above. Instead one thought raced through my mind, back and forth back and forth, until I almost could see the thought flying out through my ear for everyone to see. I made an 180 and found Harry not far behind me, owing to his height could see the sight from a bit further behind the front row than I had been able to. I took five big steps and looked up into his empty expression and pronounced one single sentence.

"We have to find who did it."

Harry nodded and pulled me aside, away from the mob of terrified students and teachers, some crying, some stunned, and some half-running around in circles not knowing what else to do. I turned back to Harry, but he was faster and spoke first.

"I'm all in, but where do we begin?"

I looked around, paranoid of anyone hearing. This was my case. I couldn't explain it really, but I felt in my gut this was my time.

"I think I have an idea where to start."

I grabbed Harry by the arm and started walking towards my dorm. That was until I remembered I couldn't go there if Stacy was in our room.

"Do you have a laptop?"

Harry shook his head.

"What? Who DOESN'T have a laptop in college? How do you get any school work done?" I shook my head and started making up a new plan. Maybe Stacy was out considering the unexpected event, and our room was unguarded. I decided to take my chances. We jogged back to dorm C, which by after one night away was already starting to feel unfamiliar to me. Luckily I still carried my key in case of emergencies, considering I hadn't got anything with me when I had been abruptly thrown out of my own room. Even my phone I had stupidly enough left in the charger that morning, perhaps I could snatch that to. I thanked God for having a code to unlock it that Stacy didn't know. Together we snuck up the stairs with me in the lead. I pressed my ear to the door, but couldn't make out any sounds. With my heart nervously jumping around in my chest, I put the key in the lock and twisted. With eyes tightly shut, I pushed the door open. When I didn't hear any yelling or glass breaking, I dared to open them. The room was empty, lights out and 100 percent Stacy-free. I let out a deep breath of relief and me and Harry stepped inside.

"Look for a lilac laptop, Stacy's probably hidden it in rage just to screw with me." I informed Harry as I started to look under the sheets of the beds.

"Got it."

"You found it?!"

"No I meant got it as in, 'okay I got it I'll start looking'."

"Oh. Then carry on."

As I scoured the shelf with fast motions, something small hit me in the back of my head.

"Ouch, not you too. I've got enough with one aggressivly throwing-"

"Sssh!" Harry hushed desperatly with a jittery look in his eyes. I silenced. "Someone's coming!"